The Sandbox

GWOT hot wash, straight from the wire

Welcome to The Sandbox, a forum for service members who have served or are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, returned vets, spouses and caregivers. The Sandbox's focus is not on policy and partisanship (go to our Blowback page for that), but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. All correspondence is read, and as much as possible is posted, lightly edited. If you know someone who is deployed who might have something to say, please tell them about us. To submit a post click here.

KABOOM |

July 24, 2008

KABOOMName: SANDBOX DUTY OFFICER David StanfordPosting date: 7/24/08

A few weeksback, frequent Sandbox contributor LT G was ordered to stop posting on his milblog Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal, as his final post there explains. More detail is provided by this story, which appeared today in the Style section of the Washington Post.

At the time he was shut down it seemed prudent not to draw more attention to LT G's situation, in the hope that he would be allowed to resume posting. That has not yet happened, and City Girl, to whom he recently became engaged, has taken charge of the site, providing updates on The Gravediggers as they begin the second half of their deployment. Among her first posts was one indicating that, were he still online, LT G would now be using the nom de blog CPT G.

So here's a Sandbox salute, thank you, and congratulations to an excellent and much-appreciated writer and his beloved. We wish you many happy years and many good words ahead.

Comments

I find the Washington Post article and the Reno Neveda articles very interesting about his career choices, and his blogging and the stupidity of the officer that ran him off the net - although they still haven't told us his name, he shouldn't make general officer unless he changes. But continue to pray for the Gravediggers, Cpt G and all the folks in the front lines, even the stupid ones - or especially them.

Makes you wonder if it had anything to do with his refused assignment as the Battalion logistics officer. Probably not, seeing as how he is now a Captain. Sometimes this stuff happens when you stick it to the man.

Thank you for posting this, David, especially the WaPo article & the link to the Kaboom archive. I was also a regular Kaboom reader & was outraged about the Army's censorship of Lt G's blog. Perhaps we will be fortunate enough to see his return because of the publicity he is receiving, while also hoping he doesn't receive even more grief.

There were many times when our blogging was discouraged and I would say blogging ‎was definitely frowned on by our leadership. We lived under many of the same review of ‎material rules and had to watch what we wrote; lucky for us we did not have the same ‎issues, but most of the time we vented with each other instead of writing about it. ‎

I am outraged LT G was shut down and hope he gets to come back online. However I ‎won't hold my breath. The @$$ who shut him down is likely there for the same time ‎period, so he won't let him come back online out of emotional reasons. Many times ‎leadership is poor and God help you when you call them on it! ‎

I wish him and all the Gravediggers well for the second half of their tour and will ‎patiently wait for his return to the blogging world. ‎

A lot of people were outraged at the shutdown. It was very much like the MAC-V censors in the Nam. If it wasn't cheery, rosy, exeuberant, and victorious, it HAD to be subversive, devisive, and bad for morale.

Yeah, I doubt Capt G's censor will give up easy. And yeah, the pressure will probably just blowback on CAPT G. As ever, no good deed goes unpunished.